


Just a Moment

by ClaraxBarton



Series: The Sandbox [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, BAMF Clint Barton, BAMF Steve Rogers, F/M, Feelings, M/M, Pre-Avengers (2012), Pre-Canon, past Bucky/Steve, past Peggy/Steve - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23065594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Captain America has scared off his last few handlers, so SHIELD assigns one of their top field agents to bring Steve Rogers into a new century.**This work in INCOMPLETE and will remain so. It is from my "LATER" files. It has a beginning, a middle-is, and an end.**
Relationships: Clint Barton & Steve Rogers, Clint Barton/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: The Sandbox [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657654
Comments: 24
Kudos: 83





	Just a Moment

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. As always, thanks to Ro for beta reading.  
> 2\. So, I didn't write anything this week. BUT. I did go through my "LATER" folder and came across this. It is, as the summary suggest, unfinished. It's uh... pyramidal in completion. The beginning/foundation is complete and the very, very end. The middle part is entirely missing.  
> 3\. See the end for more notes.

* * *

* * *

  
  


Clint sighed and rolled his shoulders in an attempt to ease the tension he could feel stretching taunt across his back. 

It didn’t work, and he gave up and instead straightened up into something that was as close to parade rest as he could manage, and knocked on the door.

Thanks to his S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued BTEs, Clint’s hearing was better than any normal human’s, at least when he bothered to wear the aids, and he could hear the  _ clunk _ of something being dropped onto a hard surface on the other side of the door.

Even so, he didn’t hear the shuffle of feet, didn’t hear  _ anything _ at all, actually, except for that initial noise.

Clint waited, his rather infamous patience not the least bit tested by standing in front of a closed door in the hallway of a Midtown apartment that, for all that it wasn’t the lap of luxury, was  _ so _ much more than Clint would have been able to afford had he had to rely on only his S.H.I.E.L.D. salary for income.

After three minutes and fifteen seconds, Clint knocked again, two sharp raps of his knuckles against the door.

Still nothing.

He knew, thanks to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s oh-so-helpful, oh-so-overly-invasive security protocols, that there was definitely someone in the apartment. 

When a third knock, ninety seconds later, still resulted in nothing, Clint sighed.

He was patient, sure. He was a  _ sniper _ . 

But that didn’t mean this wasn’t boring as all fuck.

And it didn’t mean he didn’t already resent the hell out of this new so-called ‘mission’ of his.

One final knock, he decided. And then he’d pick the lock.

He knocked, gave it another seventy-five seconds, and then shrugged and pulled out the little pouch with his picks in it.

The lock was decidedly,  _ depressingly _ easy to pick, and Clint was sliding the pouch back into his pocket and making a mental note to give someone at S.H.I.E.L.D. hell for that when he opened the door.

And immediately felt the slide of a cool metal cylinder against his forehead.

He didn’t need to look to know it was a gun. This wasn’t, after all, the first time he’d had one pressed to his head.

Clint turned his head, letting the barrel push through his hair until it came to a rest just between his eyebrows.

It let him get a clear look at the man holding the gun.

And he was- 

Well, fuck it all.

He was everything Clint had both feared and hoped he would be.

Clint cleared his throat.

“Captain Rogers, I’m pretty sure you aren’t cleared to use that weapon, and I  _ know _ you don’t have a license for it because you don’t even have a driver’s license, and your Social Security card and your Birth Certificate are probably in a landfill somewhere.”

Tact had never been Clint’s strong suit, and seeing the fabled bluer than blue eyes of Captain America narrow dangerously at him was, well, to be expected. He probably shouldn’t have said the thing about the landfill.

“Who are you?” The man’s voice was as steady as his grip on the gun, the sliver of his body visible through the crack of the door as implacably hard and unwavering.

“Clint Barton, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Rogers frowned, brows creasing and lips curving downwards in disappointment. And wasn’t that something to file away.

“How do I know you’re who you say you are?”

Clint rolled his eyes. Really?  _ Really? _

He reached into his back pocket, and Rogers shoved the gun harder into his head.

“Ow. Calm down there, Grandpa. I’m just getting my ID.”

Clint flipped it open and wedged it between the doorframe and the door. Rogers grabbed for it with his other hand.

“It’s not that hard to forge ID papers,” Rogers muttered.

Clint snorted.

“Maybe not back in your time. But the layers of encryption and-”

“Why are you here?” Rogers clearly wasn’t one for small talk.

“Because it’s 0900, and showing up half an hour late the first day on the job seemed better than showing up an hour late.”

“What job?”

“You?”

Rogers’s eyes took on a whole new shade of  _ what the fuck _ that had Clint arching his own eyebrows back at him.

“I’m your liaison? They told you I’d be here at 8:30 this morning?”

“No one told me anything.”

Clint sighed. Just what the  _ fuck _ had he done to piss Hill off enough for her to assign him to this op?

“Did you...did you check your voicemail?”

Rogers didn’t respond.

“Do you know  _ how _ to check your voicemail?”

The glare Rogers responded with made it real clear to Clint why the Nazis had been so terrified of a man as pretty as Steve Rogers. The man wore  _ go fuck yourself _ very, very well.

Clint smirked, the kind of expression that usually made Natasha trip him on the shooting range or Rumlow kick him in the back of the thigh during a hands-only sparring match.

Rogers just sighed and opened the door.

He also,  _ finally _ , pulled the gun away from Clint’s face.

And Clint, well, maybe it was that Clint had woken up on the wrong side of the wrong bed that morning, but he couldn’t resist.

He reached for the gun, one hand sliding along the barrel and angling it away even as his other moved towards Rogers’ hand on the trigger, and Rogers reacted fast.  _ Faster _ than Clint had even dreamed possible, and a second later, Clint found himself shoved face-first against the floor and the full weight of Captain America pressed against his back.

Clint was shocked into a wheezing, breathless laugh.

“Okay, okay,  _ uncle _ .”

Rogers kept him pinned down for a solid minute, definitely long enough to make his point, but then he eased his weight off and stood up.

He dropped Clint’s ID badge down onto the floor.

Clint grinned up at him, but Rogers just cocked one eyebrow, completely unamused.

Clint huffed and held up the gun he had, at least, managed to wrestle away from Rogers before being taken down.

Before Rogers could take it back, however, Clint pulled it just out of reach to examine it.

It was a 9MM. A STAR BM, by the looks of it, and Clint couldn’t help the wave of nostalgia he felt when he shifted his fingers over the grip. The first pistol he’d ever fired had been a STAR BM. They didn’t make them anymore, hadn’t for twenty years. 

He didn’t know if Rogers knew that. If Rogers, whenever he had managed to slip his surveillance and acquire an illegal and very unauthorized firearm, had chosen the weapon because it wasn’t a newer model or because it maybe reminded him of something he had held before, seventy years ago.

Either way, Clint wasn’t going to be the idiot to let Captain America go running around with a loaded gun.

He thumbed the safety on, before ejecting the magazine and- 

It was empty.

Clint frowned up at Rogers, who was staring down at him, arms folded over his broad chest and blue eyes frostier than the Arctic swimming pool he had been rescued from.

Looking back at the gun in his hands, Clint clicked the safety off and pulled the slide back, expecting - hoping? - to find a bullet in the chamber.

Nothing. 

Clint looked down the barrel, seeing only light.

“Christ, you threatened me with an unloaded gun?”

“You gonna give it back, or just cuddle with it on the floor?”

Oh. Oh,  _ wow _ . 

Absolutely  _ no _ briefings or dossiers had ever suggested that Steve Rogers had  _ sass _ .

_ Wow _ .  _ Coulson was going to piss himself. _

Clint forced his gaping mouth shut when Rogers snorted derisively and rolled his eyes at him.

“You gonna tell me where you got it from?” Clint had to ask.

Rogers’ eyes widened, a parody of innocence that maybe, might have fooled some, but definitely didn’t fool Clint, who had perfected that look as a kid in an orphanage decades ago.

“Gee, it just happened to be here. I thought S.H.I.E.L.D. left it for me.”

It was Clint’s turn to snort derisively.

But he passed the gun back.

Rogers took it hesitantly.

“Hell,” Clint muttered as he rose to his feet, “if someone at S.H.I.E.L.D. left it for you, then who’m I to take it away, huh?”

Rogers frowned at him, as if Clint was a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.

Clint was used to that kind of look.

He ignored it, and closed and re-locked Rogers’ door. There wasn’t even a deadbolt on the thing.

He made a mental note to pick one up and install it tomorrow.

Looking around the rest of the place, Clint- Clint had to stare in horror.

“What the fuck?”

Rogers looked from Clint’s face to the living room of his apartment.

The absolutely  _ bare _ living room of his apartment. There was a single couch, in some kind of sturdy gray fabric that looked almost as blandly clinical as the gray wooden coffee table between the couch and a wall-mounted, smallish flat-screen television.

The living room had a curving, exterior wall that was made almost entirely of windows. But you wouldn’t know it, not unless you’d memorized the floorplan like Clint had, because the windows were covered in dull gray curtains that were only a shade lighter than the gray walls.

Clint looked towards the dining room/kitchen area, and wasn’t the least bit surprised to find that it too was all gray - from the table and chairs to the appliances to the floor to the backsplash tiles to the counter.

“Jesus, who the fuck decorated this place?”

Clint had to see if the rest of it was as- as  _ empty _ and sterile.

Without waiting for Rogers’ permission, or even bothering to ask, Clint investigated the bathroom - gray. The guest room - gray, and entirely empty except for more gray curtains. Master bedroom-

Rogers was suddenly  _ there _ , pulling the door shut before Clint had even managed more than a single glance -  _ gray _ .

Clint raised an eyebrow.

“You got a porn stash or a weapons arsenal I should know about in there?”

Rogers’ only response was that same Arctic glare.

“Right. Sure. Less I know about, less I can testify about in court, anyway.”

“Testify?” Rogers’ brow furrowed, lines between his thick eyebrows so deep they might as well as have foxholes.

“It’s- just a joke. Don’t worry about it.”

Rogers’ expression didn’t immediately ease.

“What kind of a liaison?” he asked.

“Huh?” Clint frowned at him. He was, shockingly, taller than Captain America. Maybe by only an inch or so. But  _ still _ .

“You said you were my liaison. What kind of a liaison?” Rogers repeated the question slowly, enunciation careful and precise, as if Clint were particularly stupid.

Clint grinned at him.

“Your liaison to living in the twenty-first century. S.H.I.E.L.D’s assigned me to show you the ropes and help you… integrate or whatever.”

“Integrate,” Rogers repeated skeptically.

“Or whatever,” Clint repeated, because, yeah. Rogers had every right to be skeptical.

Clint didn’t have the security clearance to be a part of whatever talks Hill and Fury and Pierce had had over what to do with a problem like Steve Rogers, but he was willing to bet the Bed-Stuy apartment building he owned that it wasn’t ‘let him be a real boy’.

Rogers was looking Clint over, still skeptical.

“This is a punishment,” Rogers sighed.

Clint nodded.

“Oh, hell yeah. Still trying to figure out just  _ how _ I pissed Hill off this time but-” He stopped talking when Rogers adopted that Mariana Trench deep scowl again. “Oh. You meant  _ you _ were being punished.”

“You think being assigned as my liaison is a punishment?” Clint couldn’t be sure, but Rogers actually sounded faintly amused.

Clint rolled his eyes.

“Of course it is. I’m one of the best field agents S.H.I.E.L.D. has, but am I off doing  _ anything _ important? Nope. I’m here, babysitting a geriatric super soldier who doesn’t even know how to check his own voicemail and-”

“I know how to check the voicemail,” Rogers growled. “The first lackey they sent showed me how.”

“ _ Lackey _ ? I’m not a fucking lackey. I’m-”

But Rogers was smirking, and Jesus  _ Fuck, _ was that expression annoying. 

Clint shut the hell up, before he said something that got him accused of treason or stricken from Phil’s Christmas list.

“So, how long do I have the pleasure of your company?” Rogers asked.

Clint shrugged.  _ Too long _ .

“Long as it takes to get you comfortable navigating the world on your own.”

“And who decides when that is? Me or you?”

“My superior,” Clint sighed.

Rogers’ eyes lit up, and Clint groaned, already  _ knowing _ what the asshole was about to say.

“So it’s my call, then,” Rogers decided.

“ _ No _ . It’s not your call. It’s my boss’s call.”

“So you’re… what, going to file reports on my progress?” Rogers seemed both angry and resigned by the prospect.

“Daily ones, yep,” Clint confirmed. “You know, things like ‘Captain Rogers figured out how to tie his shoelaces’, and ‘Captain Rogers finally admitted he doesn’t know how to check his voicemail’, and-”

Rogers made that frustrated, growling sound again, and pushed past Clint and back into the living room. 

Clint followed in time to see Rogers dig a standard issue S.H.I.E.L.D. smartphone from between two couch cushions.

Rogers pressed some buttons, and a moment later, a tinny voice filled the living room.

“... _ have three unheard messages. Message one-” _

The voice switched to that of a woman, soft and deep-throated and tinged with a faint accent. It sounded vaguely familiar to Clint.

“ _ Steve, my darling, I hardly know what to say. I suppose I’m grateful that I can leave this as a message. I’m not sure I could stand to hear your voice again without being able to hold you.” _

Rogers mashed his fingers against the buttons furiously, clearly, desperately, trying to make the words stop.

“ _ When Director Fury informed me that you had been recovered I, well, I thought it was a dream. I have been assured, however, that it was not a dream. That this is not a dream. That you are alive and-” _

Clint reached for the phone, not pulling it from Rogers’ iron grip but smoothing his fingers to the side so that he could end the message replay.

Silence filled the room.

Well, something close to silence.

Rogers’ harsh breathing was nearly deafening, ragged exhales and gasping, wet inhales that made Clint’s skin crawl.

“Get out,” Rogers commanded.

Clint had never been good at following orders, but there was a first time for everything. 

He hightailed it the fuck out of there.

-o-

Day two started out a  _ little _ better.

In that Clint showed up on time, bearing two coffees, a bag of pastries, and a backpack full of gear.

He also didn’t have to pick the lock.

Rogers opened the door just after Clint’s second knock.

And he looked like shit.  _ Way  _ worse than he had yesterday, and well, Clint couldn’t really blame him.

It hadn’t taken much effort to figure out who the woman on Rogers’ voicemail had been.

_ Peggy Carter _ .

Her photographs, and a few oil paintings, were all over S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ - not just the New York office, but the main office in DC and all of the other branches that Clint had traveled to.

He had known, intellectually, that Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers were a  _ thing _ . He had, after all, had the standard teenage crush on Captain America that had sent him scurrying to the libraries in all of the towns the circus visited and stealing whatever wanking material he could get his hands on. And a decent amount of that material had featured, yes, the photographs that Clint had been after, but also details about Rogers and Carter that made it clear that the founder of S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t just the most badass woman of all time - except,  _ maybe _ ? Natasha - but had probably been Steve Rogers’ girl. Young Clint had been so depressed when he finally put it together, finally accepted that the hints of Rogers and Carter being a couple were stronger than any teenage yearning for Rogers and Bucky Barnes, childhood best friend and the sniper who Clint had always most admired, to be lovers. So, fine. Steve Rogers was straight. Clint’s short life had already been full of disappointment by then.

But seeing Rogers wrecked by the sound of Carter’s voice yesterday? Seeing the aftereffects of it  _ today _ ?

Clint wasn’t comfortable with emotions, period. But genuine ones, deep ones, ones like Rogers were emoting so hard they were suffocating Clint? He didn’t  _ do _ those kinds of emotions.

But he  _ did _ do coffee.

He thrust one of the paper cups into Rogers’ hands without explanation and the bag of pastries into his other.

Rogers sniffed at the coffee, as though inspecting it for poison or something.

“No idea how you take it. History books never mentioned. So it’s black. No sugar.”

“Never had the money to spare for something like sugar in coffee, before the war. Barely had money for coffee. And I’m- I  _ was _ lactose intolerant.”

Rogers looked a little surprised by how much he had just revealed about himself.

Clint took a deep breath.

“Yeah, well, same. I mean, not the lactose intolerant thing. Jesus, that means you grew up not able to eat  _ cheese _ ? You poor bastard.”

Rogers’ lips twisted - not quite a smile, but not that far from it.

“What’s in the bag?” he asked, indicating not the pastries in his hand but the backpack over Clint’s shoulders.

“Few things to begin your… you know,” Clint waved a hand, “instruction into our glorious late-stage capitalist dystopia.”

Rogers didn’t ask for more details, though his eyebrows lifted at Clint’s words, and together they drank their coffee and ate their pastries in silence - Clint grabbing a cruller for himself while Rogers ate the six other pastries in the bag.

It made Clint wonder if the man even had  _ food _ in his apartment.

He added that to his to-do list for the day.

The  _ first _ item on his to-do list, however, had Clint sighing and anxiously scratching at his hair before he turned to Rogers.

“I owe you an apology,” he said in a rush. “Yesterday, I was an asshole and- I mean, you might as well know now, I’m  _ always _ an asshole, but I was intrusive and… Hell, I was a dick. And you don’t deserve that. So, I’m sorry.”

“Feel better now that you’ve apologized to Captain America?”

It wasn’t that Clint  _ hadn’t _ expected belligerence from Rogers - after all, yesterday had been a pretty damn good introduction to ‘Master Tactician and Pain in the Ass, Sassy Little Shit: Steve Rogers’. But Rogers sounded  _ pissed _ .

And he looked furious.

“What?” Clint was horrified to hear the squeak in his own voice.

“You grew up with me in a textbook, you don’t think I’m a real person, you don’t think I’m worth your time, and, what, your superior - your boss - chewed you out over yesterday, so now you came back groveling with coffee and croissants and empty platitudes? I had enough of that shit the last time I was alive. I liked you better when you were honest.”

And Clint… Clint sat there gaping at him as Rogers grabbed the backpack Clint had set down on the floor and then stormed off to the master bedroom.

The click of the lock was unmistakable.

As was the sound of something heavy being shoved against the door.

-o-

To say that Coulson and Hill were unimpressed with Clint’s first report was an understatement.

“He wouldn’t let you into the apartment today at  _ all _ ?” Hill repeated.

Clint shrugged.

He had gone back, sans coffee or pastries - or backpack - the day after his disaster of an apology, and Rogers had very pointedly responded to Clint’s knock by sliding the deadbolt home on the lock that Clint had left in the backpack. Along with the tools to install it.

Clint had sighed, had rested his forehead against the door and contemplated early retirement.

“I don’t need you for anything today, Agent,” Rogers had called through the door, startling Clint into taking a stumbling step backwards. “I’ve already gotten my morning coffee and pastry.”

Summarily dismissed, Clint had retreated and eventually gone back to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ and handed in his reports for the first three days of his very, very,  _ extremely-ridiculously _ failed mission.

And now he was getting his ass chewed out by both Hill and Coulson.

Plus, Coulson was  _ looking _ at Clint. That look that so clearly said ‘ _ I raised you better than this _ ’ and  _ ‘why are you desecrating a national monument?’ _

Clint was used to being a disappointment. Hell, he was  _ comfortable _ being a disappointment.

But that didn’t mean he was immune to Coulson’s  _ looks _ .

“Go back there and make him open the door.” Hill snapped the folder closed on Clint’s reports. She had been done with the debriefing before it had even begun. She was even worse than Clint at the whole ‘people are humans and have feelings we need to think about’ thing. She hadn’t even wanted to give Rogers any kind of liaison/acclimation period - she had suggested shipping him off to S.T.R.I.K.E. training and letting him acclimate to bootcamp.

Coulson, Clint was sure, had been the one to argue that his hero and idol deserved the time to get to know the world he had given his life to save before they made him go back out there and do it all over again.

And Clint?

Clint had heard the call come in, five days ago, when the  _ Valkyrie _ had been discovered and Captain America defrosted. He had been...not snooping, so much as lingering half an hour after being dismissed from his last mission debrief, when he heard the commotion from Coulson’s office. 

Aside from growing up with Captain America as fantasy material, Clint had never really thought about him outside of that context - or the context of being best friends with Clint’s own hero and idol, Bucky Barnes.

But Captain America was  _ alive _ . He was real. He was- he was a sassy shit who was an ugly crier and stubborn as all-fuck.

He was a person. More-so than  _ Clint _ was or deserved to be. And if Rogers wanted to be left alone - where was the harm in that?

“I’m not even the right person for this job,” Clint growled. “I’m like, the  _ opposite _ of everything the guy stands for.”

Hill snorted, head tilted to the side in clear agreement. He could see her mentally composing the forms needed to ship Rogers off to Fort Benning and S.T.R.I.K.E. training.

“You brought in Romanoff,” Coulson said.

“She was a brainwashed Russian assassin! And  _ you _ wanted me to kill her!” Clint was, maybe a little - or, okay, a  _ lot _ \- still pissed about having been ordered to kill a child instead of even attempting to convince her to defect.

“And you disobeyed orders and turned her into one of our most valuable agents. And somehow, one of the most well-adjusted wetwork operatives we have.”

Clint didn’t really have a comeback for that.

Because, well, it was true. He just wasn’t sure how much of it was  _ his _ doing versus Nat’s own adaptability.

But then his brain caught up.

“You want to make Captain America an assassin?”

Hill rolled her eyes.

“No, of course not,” Coulson was quick to say. 

“He’d be the worst assassin ever,” Hill grumbled. 

“I doubt that,” Clint found himself defending Rogers. “He’s quick on his feet.”

Both Hill and Coulson regarded him with raised eyebrows.

Clint had left his game of keepaway out of the reports. For some reason, he didn’t want S.H.I.E.L.D. to know Rogers had a gun.

Especially not since Clint had provided him with ammo for the gun, courtesy of the backpack Rogers had taken.

“We don’t want him as an assassin. We have enough of those. We need him to be the public face of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Hill sighed. “Ever since the emergence of Iron Man, the public is… losing confidence in government agencies and our ability to protect them, or our  _ interest _ in protecting them. Having Steve Rogers - having Captain America - active again is something S.H.I.E.L.D. desperately needs.”

“What if he doesn’t want to fight anymore?” Clint had to ask.

“The man was willing to lay down his life for this country,” Coulson reminded Clint. “Patriotism is in his DNA.”

“He signed away his body to the U.S. government when he volunteered for Erskine’s experiment,” Hill broke in before Coulson could really get going on his favorite topic. “S.H.I.E.L.D. acquired the rights to all data and project Rebirth ‘remnants’ thanks to former Director Carter back in the ‘60s. Steve Rogers belongs to S.H.I.E.L.D.”

It wasn’t that Hill sounded so sure of herself, so without sympathy or consideration for Steve Rogers as a person outside of Captain America.

It was that Coulson didn’t disagree with her.

Clint realized, then and there, that if  _ he _ didn’t ‘liaise’ with Rogers, someone else would be assigned to the task.

Someone who might have pulled the trigger on Nat instead of putting down their gun.

Someone who thought Rogers was a ‘remnant’ of Project Rebirth to be used however S.H.I.E.L.D. saw fit.

_ Fuck _ .

Clint was going to have to make sure that didn’t happen.

-o-

On day four, Clint didn’t bother showing up until noon, two boxes of freshly-baked, so hot he worried about second degree burns on his fingers, pizzas in hand.

He knocked, not at all surprised that the door didn’t open.

“Look, Rogers, S.H.I.E.L.D. has this whole building under surveillance. They know when you take your daily shit - except for that time you tried Indian food, which kind of screwed up your perfect record of seven a.m. dumps, so I know you’re in there right now. And I know for a fact that you’re over that whole lactose intolerance thing. So open up and let me introduce you to the wonders of modern pizza, will you?”

A moment later, the door opened to reveal Rogers glaring at him. 

Clint held the pizzas up higher and offered up his least offensive grin.

Rogers rolled his eyes, but he opened the door wide enough to let Clint in.

The place was as empty and cold and uninviting as it had been the last time Clint had been there, with two notable additions.

An open MacBook Pro sat on the coffee table, bright red plastic case the only source of color in the otherwise gray living room. 

And a Dodgers hat sat on the kitchen counter.

Maybe Rogers had purchased that before Clint had entered the picture, but he sure as hell hadn’t had it sitting around the last time Clint had been there.

It wasn’t much - that single hat. But it was  _ something _ .

As was the fact that Rogers was maybe using the laptop that Clint had provided him with.

Clint shoved the pizza boxes into Rogers’ hands.

Another eyeroll, and then Rogers kicked the door closed behind Clint and led him towards the kitchen area.

They stood at the counter and ate the pizza in silence after Clint identified the two different pies.

“Buffalo chicken pizza and that one is good old-fashioned pepperoni.”

Rogers eyed the Buffalo pie with some trepidation, but he did try it - and then proceeded to eat half of it and most of the pepperoni as well.

“So, here’s the thing,” Clint said when they had finished the pizza. It was the same strategy he had used before, and it had blown up at him spectacularly then. He had no idea how it would play  _ now _ . “The world has changed a lot since you took a nap. Some things, I’m thinking, haven’t changed all that much, though.”

“Things like what?” Rogers asked.

“Things like Central Park,” Clint suggested with a shrug. “Come on.”

He didn’t entirely expect Rogers to follow him towards the door, but he did after putting the Dodgers cap on his head and reaching for his phone.

Clint stopped him, reaching for Rogers’ hand and shaking his head in the negative at his questioning look.

Rogers dropped his hand away, dutifully leaving the phone behind.

Clint set a brisk pace when they hit the street.

He had to assume S.H.I.E.L.D. had assigned tails to Rogers, but he wasn’t dumb enough to try to shake them, not today. 

It didn’t mean he wanted to make it  _ easy _ for them.

And Rogers, bless him, still had enough New Yorker in his DNA to hunch his shoulders in classic urban dweller mode and shove his way through the crowds alongside Clint until they reached the Park.

At this time of day, just after lunch on a Friday in April, it was mostly populated by tourists and anyone able to enjoy time away from work or school.

Clint kept his pace brisk, and Rogers easily kept up.

“You’re right,” Rogers said after they passed by a bench with a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent trying desperately to look like a lazy hipster enjoying -  _ Christ _ , Ralph Waldo Emerson? Were they even  _ trying _ ? “Some things haven’t changed at all.”

Clint had to laugh at the tight lines around Rogers’ eyes and mouth.

“You really thought they would?”

Rogers shrugged.

“I hoped so. Guess that makes me an idiot, huh?”

The words could have been Rogers spoiling for a fight, but the look in his eyes…

Clint shook his head.

“No. Doesn’t make you an idiot. Just means you’re still you. Still that scrawny guy who just wants to make a difference or something, huh?”

Rogers’ lips curled into his not-quite smile again.

“Or something,” he agreed.

“Your apartment is bugged.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I didn’t apologize to Captain America. I apologized to Steve Rogers, and my superior - my boss - doesn’t know you used to be lactose intolerant.”

Rogers gave him an appraising look, frank and direct, as if his eyes could see right into Clint’s soul. Maybe they could.

It left Clint feeling uncomfortable and distinctly  _ lacking _ when Rogers finally met his eyes again.

“Thank you,” was all he said. Willing, it seemed, to take Clint at his word.

Clint shrugged, and finally slowed their pace as they approached the Carousel.

Rogers blinked, looking like he’d been sucker-punched.

“This doesn’t belong here. It’s-”

“Used to be at Coney Island, back in your day?” Clint supplied.

Rogers nodded, still looking shell-shocked as he approached the ride.

“They moved it here in ‘51, though it’s seen some renovations since then. You wanna ride?”

Rogers shook his head in a sharp negative.

“I used to- Buddy of mine and I used to ride this thing, when we were kids.”

“Barnes?” Clint guessed.

Rogers’ throat worked and his eyes shimmered, but he nodded.

“He was always… I looked up to him, when I was a kid. Admired him. Hero-worshipped him, I guess. Had a Bucky Bear and everything.”

Rogers’ turned that not-smile on Clint again.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Clint blushed and shrugged. “He was a sniper, so…”

“That what you are? When you aren’t babysitting relics?”

“Sometimes,” Clint allowed. “Mostly, I’m just the guy who does what needs to get done.”

Rogers nodded.

“That’s what he was, really. The guy who got it done. The one who knew it had to be done and how to do it.”

“I thought that was you.”

Rogers shrugged, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

“Sometimes. I was the one good at getting into fights. He was the one good at getting us out of ‘em.”

Clint had to smirk at the trace of Brooklyn that crept into Rogers’ voice as he spoke of his long-dead best friend.

“Bet it was a full-time job, with a guy like you.”

Rogers laughed, the sound rich and deep and shockingly warm.

“Yeah,” he agreed, finally giving Clint a real smile. “Yeah, I guess it was.”

They watched the Carousel go round and round for what felt like half an hour before Rogers turned to him again.

“So. You’re with S.H.I.E.L.D., but you’re… not with S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Clint sucked in a breath and considered how best to approach that.

“S.H.I.E.L.D.’s all about protecting the greater good,” Clint allowed, “but that doesn’t mean they have a good eye for… details. Sometimes things, people, get lost in the machine.” He forced a casual shrug. “I’d hate for you to be one of ‘em, is all.”

Rogers was quiet again for a good, long while.

“Alright,” he finally said, and turned his back on the Carousel, “teach me what I need to know.”

-o-

First thing Clint did, on day five, was take Rogers to his gym, a hole-in-the-wall place in Sunset Park, not all that far from where Rogers had apparently grown up, and far enough away from Clint’s own place to let his paranoia feel at ease when he considered their likely tails.

He introduced Rogers to Archie, the guy who owned the place, who was old enough that he may well have served with Rogers back in the day. But Archie’s glaucoma meant he didn’t see all that well, and besides that, he’d never been one for gossip. 

So Clint got Rogers a membership, showed him how to use some of the machines, spotted him while he did some weightlifting, and then egged him into a sparring match in the boxing ring that left both of them winded, Clint bruised, and Rogers grinning and looking more alive than Clint had ever seen him.

Afterwards, they showered at the gym, changed into fresh clothes, and Clint let Rogers take the lead in getting them back to midtown, impressed that Steve was so easily able to navigate the buses and trains. But, well, he  _ was _ a New Yorker.

Some things just didn’t go away. Not after you got a new body or fought a war or sat frozen for seventy years.

Back in midtown, Clint actually  _ did _ take them on a series of detours to lose their likely tails, until they ended up in TriBeCa and Clint paid a visit to a very old friend and set about getting Rogers some  _ non _ -S.H.I.E.L.D.-approved tech.

Phone first, but Rogers balked at Clint’s suggestion of a flip phone.

“This is the future,” he told Clint. “I’m not going to use a  _ flip phone _ .”

Clint rolled his eyes so hard it was painful.

“Christ, are you the original Brooklyn hipster or something?”

Rogers just glared, either not getting the insult or not caring. Probably it was both.

Eventually, they settled on a Razr phone, high tech enough to appease Rogers and not quite high tech enough to easily hack to appease Clint.

-o-

Day six was grocery shopping, another stop at the gym so that Rogers could kick Clint’s ass again, this time with the added benefit of a crowd of regulars who cheered Rogers on because they were used to Clint kicking  _ their _ asses so frequently that they apparently couldn’t help themselves. Clint made mental notes to punish each and every one of them the next time he sparred with them.

But at the end, Rogers was grinning again, and Clint was starting to realize that the guy probably got off on fighting - maybe not in a sexual way, but it was clear that Rogers was a snarky shit who was always spoiling for a fight, and only ever seemed happy when he finally found himself in one.

Yeah. Saving his ass had  _ definitely _ been Barnes’s full-time job, Clint decided by the end of the day, when Rogers stopped no fewer than three muggings and one honest-to-god knife fight.

They got Chinese takeout after the third attempted mugging, and Rogers corrected  _ Clint _ on the way he held his chopsticks, grinning ear-to-ear when Clint glared at him and realized that, fuck the world, Rogers was right and Clint was holding them wrong.

“What’d you want to be, growing up?” Clint asked him as they fought over the last of the Wonton noodles leftover from their appetizer.

Rogers shrugged one shoulder.

“Alive.”

Clint lifted an eyebrow at him, but successfully snagged the last noodle and loudly crunched it into oblivion between his teeth.

“Just… alive?”

“Don’t say ‘just’ like it’s such an easy thing,” Rogers muttered, that not-smile back on his face. “I had a bum heart, scoliosis, asthma... Hell, in ‘40 I got pneumonia for the third time, and it was so bad Bucky got Father Michael to give me Last Rites. Far as I was concerned, being  _ alive _ was just about the best thing I could hope to be.”

And that was fair. Depressing as all hell, but fair.

Still, Clint pushed.

“Okay, but in these dreams of yours when you weren’t propping up daisies, what did you want to  _ do _ while you were alive? Or’d you always want to dress up in tights and save the world?”

Rogers rolled his eyes.

“Dressing up in tights came before the world-saving part. And it wasn’t… I don’t know.” Rogers sighed and picked at the discarded wrapper from his chopsticks. “An artist, I guess. That’s what we always talked about. Bucky saving up enough money for me to go to art school full-time, and then… He wanted to be an engineer. Always liked taking things apart and putting them back together. I figured, if I could get a decent job - doing copy work for one of the ad firms or something, he could go to school and…” Rogers trailed off with another shrug. “Doesn’t matter much now.”

The absolutely empty quality of Rogers’ voice stabbed into Clint’s gut and left his eyes and throat burning.

“‘Course it matters.” Clint had to clear his throat, had to repeat the words before they were intelligible. “You wanted to be an artist. You- you both wanted that, for you. It matters, what you wanted.”

Clint didn’t add  _ what he wanted _ , because he was too busy trying to wrap his head around the realization that Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were… had definitely been more than just childhood best friends. The times had changed, Clint knew that much, but not enough that it was realistic for two guys to plan their whole lives around each other seventy years ago and it to mean something wildly different than what that would mean  _ today _ .

“Does it, though?” Rogers asked, and his too-blue eyes met Clint’s. “They didn’t assign you to me because it matters what we wanted, back then. Not because it matters what I want now.”

-o-

Day seven was- 

Day seven was a day from hell.

It started with Clint going into HQ at 0800 to deliver his report to Hill and Coulson, who somehow thought dragging Clint out of bed early would be a  _ good _ idea.

And that went predictably enough, with Hill pointing out that Rogers was going out more and more on his own, attempting to slip his tails and even twice succeeding.

Which made Clint proud, even though he pasted a scowl on his face. And it made Coulson  _ worry _ , as if Rogers was some kind of puppy. And it made Hill furious, because she knew what kind of damage a Rogers on the loose could likely cause.

So then he was given a lecture about Rogers and S.H.I.E.L.D., and told to start bringing Rogers to HQ by the end of the week, to start  _ training _ him.

“He’s been off the ice for nine days,” Clint had to point out.

Hill just arched an eyebrow.

“Do you think the world’s terrorists care about that? Not only do we have one of our top agents out of commission dealing with Rogers, but we have undoubtedly one of the most valuable weapons in our arsenal sitting on the sidelines. Fury wants him brought in. So, bring him in. You turned Romanoff around in less than a week.”

Clint rolled his eyes.

“Romanoff and I already had a relationship - the kid and I had been playing tag for six  _ years _ before I brought her in. Rogers has known me for seven  _ days _ .”

“You’re acting like bringing him in would be a bad thing,” Coulson pointed out, his usual, painfully-insightful self.

“It’s not that,” Clint hedged because, well, he’d gotten used to lying to Coulson and Hill, over the years. Ever since the thing with Nat.

“Then what is it?” Hill asked. “Are you not up to the task?”

“I’m just -  _ nine days _ . I think he just needs time to adjust to the pace of life, to figure out who he is in 2012.”

“He’s Captain America,” Coulson said, as if that answer was obvious.

Clint debated arguing with him. With them.

“You’re right,” he finally sighed. “And fuck knows I want to be back in the field.”

Hill nodded.

“It’s where you belong,” she agreed. “And where he belongs.”

Which- 

Which filled Clint with the sudden, gut-twisting realization that he and Rogers might be tasked together on a future mission.

It was something he absolutely did  _ not _ want.

Rogers wasn’t like him.

Rogers wasn’t like Nat.

Rogers- Rogers had grown up just wanting to be  _ alive _ . 

By the time the meeting ended, Clint’s thoughts were somewhere between pessimistic as fuck and malevolent as all hell.

So, of course, when he walked past Rumlow giving some fresh-faced S.T.R.I.K.E. recruit shit, Clint couldn’t just let it be.

“There a problem here?” he asked the kid whose uniform shirt Rumlow had clenched in one hand.

The kid looked from Rumlow to Clint and back to Rumlow in fear.

“Don’t worry,” Clint assured the kid and shoved Rumlow aside, breaking his grip on the kid’s shirt, “I outrank him.”

“He’s on  _ my _ S.T.R.I.K.E. team,” Rumlow growled. “And last I heard, Delta had been disbanded after that bullshit you and Romanoff pulled in Budapest.”

Clint rolled his eyes. 

“Level Seven,” he pointed at his own chest, “Level Five,” he pointed at Rumlow. “Don’t tell me you need help remembering how math works?”

Rumlow growled something under his breath, something about  _ prissy queers _ that had Clint’s blood boiling and his fingers clenching into fists.

“Boys, go take a shower. You’re making this hall stink with all of your testosterone.”

It was Sharon Carter striding towards them, expression cold and haughty and so judgemental even Rumlow looked, momentarily, deflated.

Carter stopped beside Clint, eyebrows raised, and Rumlow, his recruit, and the handful of his other team members who had been watching the proceedings, filed out.

“You realize he still thinks you’re flirting with him, right?” Carter asked Clint.

“He can’t possibly be that dumb,” Clint sighed. “I had a thing for him for like… twelve seconds. And then he opened his mouth.”

Carter’s lips curved into a smirk.

“So, I hear you’re on Project Rejuvenate.”

Clint rolled his eyes.

S.H.I.E.L.D. really needed to get better at naming their projects.

“Yeah. Lucky me, huh?”

Carter shrugged one slim shoulder.

“Oh, I don’t know. At least you have something pretty to look at all day.”

“Some _ one _ ,” Clint corrected, irritated because why the  _ fuck _ was everyone treating Rogers like a  _ thing _ ?

Carter lifted her eyebrows.

“Sorry,” Clint sighed. “Just- it’s fine. It’s whatever.”

“What’s he like?”

“Exactly like you’d expect,” Clint responded before he could help himself. And that wasn’t fair, probably. Not to Rogers, who was  _ nothing _ like what Clint had expected before he came face-to-face with him that first day. 

Carter didn’t look like she was buying it, in any case.

  
  
  


* * *

* * *

Insert the ACTUAL PLOT

* * *

* * *

Clint pressed one last, hard kiss to Steve’s lips, and then slipped the burner phone into his hand.

Steve’s mouth crinkled in distaste.

“A  _ flip phone _ ?” He still had the same derision for the outdated tech that he had had the first time Clint had shown him one.

“Hard to trace. It’s a burner phone. You ever need me, you call, okay? I programmed my number in there.”

Steve wrapped his hand around Clint’s fingers.

“What about if you need me?”

Clint forced a grin.

“Me? I know how to take care of myself. ‘Sides, you’ve got more important things - people - who need you.”

Steve glared at him, so clearly ready to call Clint on his shit that Clint had to kiss him again.

“Look, I gotta go. Just- look after yourself, will you?”

“Only if you do the same.”

“I always do,” Clint said, the lie rolling off his tongue as easy as all of his lies did.

But walking away from Steve Rogers?

That was the hardest thing he had ever done.

* * *

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> 4\. Guess what the actual premise of me sitting down to write this was going to be? GUESS. Okay, do you have your guess?  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> -  
> Clint shows Steve Rogers internet pornography. They jerk off together. They fall into sex together. They fall into feelings together.
> 
> 5\. You totally see it, right? The absolute LACK OF ANYTHING LIKE THAT?  
> 6\. I'm sorry. But, I guess, like, imagine that in the middle as you will.  
> 7\. As with all of the content I post to this new series, "Sandbox", this fic is open and available for ADOPTION. Rewrite it, borrow from it, flush it out, do whatever - just please give this fic a link/shoutout and LET ME KNOW SO I CAN READ YOUR AWESOME THING.  
> 8\. Tune in later this week for like, an actual fic update.  
> 9\. oh dude. I'm fully aware that all of the "private" conversations between Clint and Steve at Steve's apartment - which they both know is bugged - aren't private any longer. One of the many, many reasons I shrugged and said 'fuck it' to finishing this fic.


End file.
